It should be a stunning highlight of Paris 2024 – triathletes competing in the River Seine, bringing swimming back to the heart of the city. However, concerns about water quality have led to the postponement of the first event by a day.
Standing on the Pont des Invalides, just downstream of the planned starting line, locals and tourists shared their thoughts with me about whether they would be tempted to take a dip themselves.
“It’s a beautiful river,” said Reda, a Parisian, as he observed the Seine glistening below on a hot July day. “But I will never dive in, even if they clean it for years.”
City swimming, which has been banned in Paris for a century due to water quality issues, is intended to be one of the major legacies of the Games, thanks to a significant regeneration project.
As recently as Monday, organizers were confident the triathlon events would proceed as planned. However, the weekend’s heavy rain has disrupted these plans.
Paris’s “single system” drainage has become overwhelmed, with excess water – from kitchens and toilets, as well as rain run-off – draining into the river.
Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo recently swam in the Seine to highlight the cleanup efforts. Previous tests had revealed persistent levels of E. coli that exceeded the limits set by sports federations. This type of bacteria can cause illnesses including vomiting and diarrhea.
Media’s Hugh Schofield was among those who joined Ms. Hidalgo. He accidentally swallowed a mouthful of water in the process but remarked that it tasted fine.
Many of the tourists I spoke to on the Invalides bridge discussed the relative ease of open-water swimming in their home countries. Visitors from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic all said they had swum in their respective countries’ rivers, lakes, and canals – and that they would do the same in the Seine if the evidence suggested it was safe.
“I would go for it,” said Dutchwoman Esmee. “It doesn’t look that bad from here.”
France lags behind the European Union’s average score for top-quality bathing water conditions. About 75% of French bathing waters were rated “excellent” in 2023 compared with 85% across the bloc as a whole, according to the European Environment Agency (EEA).
Although it was safe to bathe in most of the EU’s bathing waters, coastal waters were generally better than rivers and lakes, the agency noted in its report published in May.
Cyprus topped the full table with 97.6% of its bathing waters being of excellent quality, followed by Austria at 96.9% and Croatia at 96.7%.
As the data only includes the EU, the UK is not covered. While swimming is returning to the Seine, currently only one stretch of the Thames – near Wallingford, Oxfordshire – is designated for bathing.
The EEA specifically mentioned Paris’s €1.4bn (£1.1bn; $1.5bn) cleanup operation, which began 10 years ago. As part of this effort, a vast rainwater storage basin has been created, capable of storing the equivalent of 20 Olympic swimming pools’ worth of water – all part of a system to prevent sewage from flowing into the Seine during heavy rainfall.
Not every visitor to the bridge on the eve of the men’s triathlon was concerned about cleanliness, with some saying they would consider jumping into the river as long as the weather was warm enough.
One man from Brazil said that was simply what he and his compatriots did. “In my city, São Paulo, it’s not clean either,” he admitted.
However, several Parisians agreed that a clean and swimmable river would be an exciting part of the Olympic legacy. Danielle, a university professor, said she would “absolutely” swim in the Seine. “I have wanted to do it for a long time,” she said with a grin.
For one man named Damien, maintaining the cleanliness was “a big project,” but one worth pursuing. “It’s a good opportunity for all Parisians,” he said.
Testing of the water continues to be carried out daily. Lambis Konstantinidis, operations director for Paris 2024, said there were several backup plans in place, including the use of contingency days. Downgrading the triathlons into duathlons – and scrapping the swimming entirely – would only be considered in a “really, really extreme case,” he told the media on Monday.
